Chapter 34
The locker room was quieter than usual, but not silent. Guys were still getting dressed, taping sticks, and going through their routines. There was something underneath it, though, a carefulness that hadn't been there before.
I pulled my jersey over my head and tried to focus on the game. Utah. My old team. Half those guys had been my teammates, had seen me in the locker room every day, and none of them had known. Or maybe some of them had. Maybe they'd talked about it after I left.
"Piper." Hendricks, one of the defensemen, stopped by my stall. He was a big guy from Minnesota, quiet, and kept to himself. We'd barely spoken beyond game talk in all the time we'd been teammates.
I looked up.
"Good statement," he said.
Then he walked away.
I went back to my tape. Across the room, guys were carefully not looking at me. Some of them had probably known or suspected. Guys talk. Guys notice things. But knowing and knowing are different.
Colton dropped onto the bench next to me. He was twenty-two, a rookie, called up from the AHL three weeks ago. He had too much energy and not enough fear, which made him either a future star or a future cautionary tale.
"Dude," he said.
"Colton."
"That's so cool. Like, actually cool. My cousin's gay. He's gonna lose his shit when I tell him I play with you."
"Great."
"Can I get a picture with you? For him. Not now, obviously. After the game."
I looked at him. He was completely sincere. There wasn't an ounce of performance in it.
"Yeah," I said. "After the game."
He grinned and bounced off to bother someone else.
The tunnel to the ice was the same as always: concrete walls and rubber mats, the distant roar of the crowd already filtering through. I'd walked this tunnel a hundred times, and it had never been different.
It was different now.
Coach gave the usual pregame speech. Nothing about my announcement or the news cycle, just hockey. I was grateful for that. The last thing I needed was a moment, a speech about bravery or pride. I just wanted to play.
We filed out for warmups. The arena was loud, louder than a Sunday night game should be. I kept my eyes on the ice as I stepped through the gate, focused on the cold air hitting my face, the familiar give of the surface under my blades.
Then I looked up.
There were signs. I'd expected that. I'd braced myself for slurs, for Bible verses, for the worst of what people could be.
But the first one said PIPER PRIDE in rainbow letters, held up by a woman in an Aces jersey.
Next to her, a kid who couldn't have been more than twelve had a sign that said WE SEE YOU.
I looked away and started skating.
Warmups were muscle memory. Stretch, skate, shoot.
I fell into the rhythm of it and tried not to think about the cameras that were definitely pointed at me, the commentary that was definitely happening in the broadcast booth.
They'd be talking about my statement, my history, probably dragging up Ro's name for comparison.
I couldn't control that. I could only control the puck on my stick.
Utah took the ice on the other side. I spotted Murph doing his usual warmup routine, head down, focused. I wondered if he'd seen the news.
His stick had pride tape wrapped around his stick. He wasn't making a show of it, wasn't waving it around or drawing attention. It was just there.
I kept skating and didn't look at him again.
Back on our bench, I grabbed my water bottle and scanned my own team's sticks lined up in the rack. Most of them were plain, the usual black tape jobs. But Hendricks had pride tape on his. So did Colton, which made sense given how excited he'd been earlier.
Nobody mentioned it. Nobody made a speech. They were just sticks with tape on them, and we were just a team getting ready to play a game.
The horn sounded. Warmups ended. I skated back toward our bench and passed Murph going the other direction.
He didn't say anything. Just tapped his stick against mine as we crossed, the way players do, the way we'd done a hundred times when we were teammates.
But he held my gaze for half a second longer than he needed to.
Then he was gone, and the game was about to start.
The puck dropped, and everything else fell away.
This was the part I knew, the part that had never betrayed me. Skate, read, react, find the lanes, anticipate the play. I'd been doing this since I was eight years old, and my body knew what to do even when my brain was somewhere else.
First shift, I won a board battle against a defenseman I used to practice with. Second shift, I set up a shot that went wide. Third shift, I took a hit along the boards that rattled my teeth and got back up, and kept skating.
The crowd was loud. I couldn't pick out individual voices, couldn't tell who was cheering and who was jeering. It was all just noise, a wall of sound that pressed against the glass and faded into the background once I was moving.
Midway through the first period, a slur cut through the arena noise. Someone in the lower bowl, maybe ten rows back.
I didn't look. I just took my position for the faceoff and waited for the puck to drop.
The puck dropped. I won the draw, fed it back to my defenseman, and cycled into position. Thirty seconds later I was in front of the net, screening the goalie while a shot came in from the point. It deflected off my shin and trickled wide.
We scored late in the first. Not me, but I was on the ice for it, clogging up the slot while Colton roofed a rebound over the goalie's shoulder. He crashed into me during the celebration, grinning like a maniac, and for a second it was just a goal, just a game.
Then I glanced at the stands. A guy in a Utah jersey was making a gesture I didn't need to interpret.
I looked away.
Second period, Utah tied it up. Murph got the assist, a nice pass from behind the net to their center. He celebrated with his teammates, and I tried not to think about how we used to celebrate together.
The game got chippy after that. A late hit here, a slash there. Nothing unusual for a divisional matchup, but it seemed sharper tonight. Or maybe I was imagining it.
Vega dropped the gloves with one of our defensemen midway through the second. From the bench, I watched them throw punches while the crowd roared. Vega used to protect me. Now he was on the other side, fighting someone who was theoretically protecting me instead.
The refs broke it up. Both guys went to the box. The game continued.
We went into the third period tied 1-1. The ice was choppy from two periods of hard skating, and my legs were heavy. I hadn't slept well the night before, too wired thinking about what today would bring. Now I was running on adrenaline and muscle memory, and stubbornness.
We got a power play halfway through. Coach put me on the first unit, same as always. I took my spot in the left circle and waited for the play to develop.
The puck moved around the perimeter. The lane opened before it was there, and I shifted my weight and one-timed the pass into the top corner. The goalie didn't have a chance.
The arena exploded.
Colton crashed into me first, then Hendricks, then the rest of the unit piled on. I was somewhere in the middle of it, helmet knocked sideways, gloves pounding my back. Someone was yelling in my ear and I couldn't make out the words, but it didn't matter.
When I skated back to the bench, I glanced at the crowd. The woman with the PIPER PRIDE sign was on her feet, screaming. The kid next to her was jumping up and down. Somewhere else, probably, the guy who'd called me a slur was sitting in silence.
I hoped he was choking on it.
We held the lead. Utah pulled their goalie with two minutes left, and we weathered the storm, blocking shots, clearing the zone, running out the clock. When the final horn sounded, we'd won 2-1.
The handshake line was the part I'd been dreading.
It was tradition. You lined up and shook hands with every player on the opposing team, win or lose. Usually it was automatic, a blur of gloves and mumbled "good games." But tonight I'd have to look at guys who used to be my teammates and see what was in their faces.
Murph found me in the middle of the line. He grabbed my hand and pulled me in, helmet to helmet.
"Proud of you, Pipes," he said.
Then he was gone, moving down the line, and I was shaking the next guy's hand without seeing his face.
Vega was near the end. He was still sweaty from the fight, a bruise forming under his left eye. When he got to me, he didn't say anything. Just squeezed my hand hard enough to feel through the glove and nodded once.
The locker room after was loud the way winning locker rooms always are. Music playing, guys laughing, the particular chaos of a team that just pulled out a close one. I sat in my stall and unlaced my skates and tried to process what had just happened.
I'd come out. I'd played a game. I'd scored the game-winner.
The media scrum was inevitable.
They set up in the hallway outside the locker room. I stood there in my underarmor with my hair still damp from sweat and answered questions.
"Red, how does it feel to score the game-winner on a day like today?"
"Feels like scoring a game-winner."
"What was going through your mind when you stepped on the ice tonight?"
"Same thing that's always going through my mind. Win the game."
They wanted more. They wanted emotion, revelation, some kind of breakthrough moment they could turn into a headline.
I gave them hockey answers until the frustration showed in their faces.
Eventually they moved on to Colton, who was happy to talk about anything and everything, and I slipped back into the locker room.
My phone was in my stall, shoved into the pocket of my jacket. I hadn't looked at it since that morning.
I pulled it out. The screen was full of notifications, more than I could count. I ignored all of them and scrolled to Joel's name.
Joel: I just saw
Joel: Red
Joel: I'm so fucking proud of you
Joel: call me when you can. whenever. I don't care if it's 3am
Joel: I have to go warm up but I'm thinking about you
Joel: I wish I was there
The timestamps were spread across the afternoon. He'd seen the news, sent the first messages, then had to go do his job. He was probably on the ice right now, skating his exhibition program in front of thousands of people.
I sat down in my stall and read the messages again. Then a third time.
I typed back.
Red: we won
Red: I scored the game winner
Red: wish you were here too
I stared at the screen for a moment, then added one more.
Red: I love you
I hit send before I could talk myself out of it.
My phone rang three seconds later.
I answered. Joel's face filled the screen, still in costume, still in makeup, his hair slicked back from whatever he'd just skated. He was in a hallway somewhere, cinder block walls behind him, breathing hard.
"Say it again," he said.
My throat closed up.
"I love you," I said.
Joel pressed his free hand over his mouth. His eyes were wet, and he was laughing or crying or both.
"I've loved you for years," he said, muffled behind his palm. "I thought you knew."
"I didn't know if I was allowed to say it."
He dropped his hand. His face was a mess, makeup starting to smear at the corners of his eyes.
"You're always allowed," he said.
We stayed on the phone while I drove home. He told me about his exhibition skate, how he'd almost missed a jump because he'd been thinking about me. Then his voice shifted, got brighter.
"I did something," he said.
"What?"
"The exhibition. I had a costume change mid-program. Started in black, the usual. Then halfway through, I stripped it off and underneath was white. All white, with red accents."
Joel had worn black his entire career. The Ice Prince was cold and untouchable. I'd never seen him skate in anything else.
"How'd it go over?"
"The crowd lost their minds. I've never heard anything like it." He laughed, the sound bright and strange. "Natalia cried. My father left before the scores came up."
"He was there?"
"He's always there. He walked out during the standing ovation."
Joel didn't sound upset about it.
"Red accents," I said.
"Yeah." His voice went soft. "I wonder where I got that idea."
I told him about the game, about Murph's pride tape, about Vega's handshake. We talked over each other and laughed at nothing because neither of us could hold a coherent thought.
When I pulled into my driveway, I sat there with the engine running and Joel's face glowing on my phone.
"I wish you were here," I said.
"I'll be there tomorrow. First flight out."
"You don't have to—"
"Red." He cut me off. "I'm coming."
I didn't argue.
We stayed on the phone until I was inside, sitting on my couch in the dark with the house quiet around me. Joel was in his hotel room by then, changed out of his costume.
"I should let you sleep," I said.
"Probably." He didn't hang up.
I thought about Ro, who hadn't gotten to choose. I thought about tomorrow, when Joel would be here in my house, and I wouldn't have to pretend.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said.
"Yeah." He smiled, tired, the makeup fully gone now, his face bare and open on my screen. "See you tomorrow."
I hung up and sat there in the dark for a long time, the phone warm in my hand.